


Colour blind

by jay_hope_w



Category: Romance - Fandom
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/M, Forbidden Love, Romance, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24319786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jay_hope_w/pseuds/jay_hope_w
Summary: A man found a book that was read to him by his parents and is sharing with his children.
Relationships: forbidden love - Relationship





	Colour blind

Prologue

"Daddy can you tell us the story, please," Sheena said, since the young boy and girl were ready to go to bed. The father sighed as he was tired. He knew he wanted to share some things with his two kids, Sheena and Darien. Sheena was nine and Darien was four.  
"What book do you want me to read tonight?" The children ran to the book shelf. They were going through the books as if they were looking for the last book on earth. Needless to say, the room was covered in books. The father could not figure out how fast they can make that amount of mess, in such a little time. "I hope you two are going to clean this mess up, or else I'll have to tell mommy". The kids looked at their dad with almost red faces. All he could see is his mother's fair skin in them. He smiled, as he was proud of his two kids. They were his pride and joy. He loved his wife even more for giving them to him. As his two children settled in for bed they passed a book over to their father. He looked at the book and was amazed, because that was the book read to him and his siblings as a child by his deceased grandfather. He picked up the book, "this, my loves, was a book that was written by your great grandfather". The kids looked bewildered. They couldn't believe such a thing was possible. They wondered how old this book could possibly be. Forget about how book he novel is- What type of story lies in the tattered pages? "Daddy, what is this book about?" Sheena said, with a little bit of excitement in her voice. "This is a story of what the power of love can do." "Is it about Cinderella and Prince Charming, daddy?" The father laughed, "Well, I guess you can say that. This is a story about how your great great grandfather met and fell in love with your great great grandmother." The children said "cooool" in unison as they were already excited. "Daddy can you read it to us?!" As they were getting more excited, they jumped up and down on the bed. The father smiled in reminiscing about his childhood, remembering when his grandfather read this book to him. As a husband and a father in a mixed raced relationship, this reading by his grandfather never left his mind. He only thanked his grandfather for reading him the book. No matter if he was living in the 21st century, he still received odd looks but with the story of his great great grandparents, all he could do is hold his head high. The looks they get as a family is nothing compared to the adventure they had to deal with. "I will not start the book until you guys get in your bed and try to be quite. Your mother isn't feeling well today and you know she's sleeping". They went straight to bed and tucked themselves under their covers in anticipation. The father opened the book and started to read.

I was born on the Mississippi coast. My mother and father were slaves down there, and so were their parents before that. They were all in the same plantation for many years, or so I’ve been told. I was a little kid when my father tried to run away and got caught, but I remember it as if it was yesterday. It was raining cats and dogs out there and there were dogs barking everywhere. My mother started to bawl. At the time, I didn't know why. All I remember after that was being shipped to New Orleans and scared for my life.  
When I got there the first thing I remember was this huge house. I didn't see anything like it in Mississippi. Then this tall white man came out with this funny beard. He looked at me and the other slaves and shouted the rules of, what he called, his kingdom. "...talk to me before I talk to you, then Imma have to bust y'all niggers. I’m the sheriff around here so if anyone tries anything stupid, you as good as dead...". I remember it going on and on and on. He didn't stop until you were not afraid of him so much, but of him talking.  
It was then I saw this little blond girl, probably my age, run out. Not only was she good looking but she looked at me in the eye which scared the hell out of me. I mean, I had a lot of white folk look me in the eye but she was different. For once it wasn't out of hate. Then she smiled and I knew from there that I would one day marry her.  
"This girl right here is the owner’s daughter. if you even look at her, Imma give you a ass whooping of a lifetime." Another Negro with me saw I was mesmerized and tapped me. I remember quickly looking to the ground and feeling her still looking at me. So I tried to sneak a glance and there she was, this time she smiled.  
A few years went by before I saw her again but I wasn’t waiting, no I couldn't. Work was so hard that I couldn't wait for anything. I was about 12 and they just started me on the tobacco farm. I didn't want to get lashed so I did everything I could to stay out of trouble.  
Friends were a dime a dozen here. It seems that my own people hated me more than the white folk. I mean I know my eyes are lighter than everybody else’s but that doesn’t mean I’m not black as well. They called me “red bone,” and I hated that name.  
Then the sheriff, as he liked to called, came and announced the news that the daughter will be coming back and that they needed help with the party set up. To hide my excitement, I pretended not to care. I put my head down and started to look away from the so called sheriff. I knew his ego would win me a spot in the house, and it did. At the same time it’s as though he was just waiting to find a reason to lash somebody and now I had his attention.  
When we got to the house, all I could think about was my first day and my parents. I wondered what happened to them and I hopeed they were all right. That thought soon left my head after we entered the house. It was huge, I never experienced wealth before this moment. All I remember thinking was I want to someday have a house like that. We were put to work the second we got in there. We had to bring out the dishes, clean the sofas and dust the rest of the furniture. I was so fascinated that it didn’t even feel like it was work. I remember dusting off every picture and every book.  
As I was looking at the book and I remember I couldn’t understand the writing on it. So I picked it up to see what it contained. Time must have passed while I was looking through it when I heard a soft “hello.” I must have got up so fast and nearly threw the book. There she stood, the owners daughter. She looked at me, with those hazel colored eyes and smiled. “You like that book, don’t you?”  
I remember being so scared I almost shit my pants. “I’m so sorry ma’am, I was just looking”.  
She turned her face as she would always do when something irked her, “I’m not a ma’am, my name is Dana, and yours?”  
I was shocked. No white folk had ever asked me my name before. I said with a stutter “Ma-ma-Maurice”.  
She smiled and gave her hand. I grasped hers and she shook mine. I seen white folks do that stuff before so it was pretty cool that I tried it. “You don’t have to fear me. Quite the opposite, we should be friends Maurice”.  
I was so shocked all I could think to say was “friends?”  
She straightened herself and said, “Yes, friends!”  
Soon after we were separated but after that day we weren’t ever separated for too long.  
As we were talking we heard foot steps coming from the living room. Dana and I looked at each other with fright and she ran one way and I the other.  
“Dana why are you down stairs still? You have to go get dressed. People will be coming soon!” I remember cleaning the table like I had never cleaned before. I thought I was scared before, but when the owner came I re-experienced fear.  
Dana went to her room and soon after that the party started. These white people were drinking and laughing. I wished I could’ve been happy like that.  
“These parties suck,” I turned to see the familiar voice and it was Dana.  
“It seems pretty cool to me. Why don’t you like it?” She turned her face then smiled, “they are so dull and all they do is talk and talk. Trust me, it’s boring.”  
At the time, I never thought I would understand her hatred for seeing people look happy. We must have shared so many laughs at the white folk who were drinking and behaving sloppily.  
“Do you know how to read?” she asked. I shook my head, and looked at the ground quite embarrassed. “I can teach you, if you want you know.” I jumped at that opportunity because I wanted to learn and I wanted to spend time with my new friend Dana. “I’ll be home all summer before I get shipped off to boarding school so we have a lot of time to learn”.  
We must have made the most elaborate arrangements to meet up. That whole summer, after I finished working in the fields, we’d hang out and read. That summer went by faster then I thought. I had so much fun and I learned so much. She even gave me a few books, which I had to hide and read at nighttime, under the moonlight. It had to end though when she was shipped off to boarding school. Goodbyes, I learned were needed the most because we didn’t even get a chance for our goodbyes. So there it was. Life without a friend you have grown to appreciate. The worst part of it all was I couldn’t talk to nobody about it. I was alone with my first heartbreak.

Six years went by and I had filled out. I was tall and had the body of an ox. They started to call me ox around the range. I was still working on the tobacco farm but I had other duties as well. One day, I was doing some work in the house and then out of a window I saw a carriage come by. I saw a young beautiful women hop out with a white man. My heart sunk knowing all I could think about was this girl, or woman, for six years and here she was. I figured she wouldn’t remember me so I tried not to get too excited. Shortly after, the door opened and giggles came through the hallway. I tried not to pay too much attention to the longing I had.  
To my dismay, the sheriff came and told us we had to go back to the farm. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go through the front door where Dana was. “Niggas, get out by the front door, Ox, you lead em!” So as I was expected to do, I walked. I remember walking out and feeling Dana’s stare on me. I looked and stared her back, she was even more beautiful then I remember. I could’ve sworn I saw her smile, but I couldn’t tell.  
For the next few months, all I could think about was this woman who I fell in love with. I was not oblivious about the fact that it was impossible for me to ever be with her but that doesn’t stop love. Sleep was hard when you can’t stop thinking and so was eating. She seemed to me my only pride and joy. I wanted to tell her how I self-taught myself how to read and how to write. I wanted to tell her that I was writing, but it seemed I’d never get the chance.  
There was an announcement for a party, the normal slave that went for the party calls wasn’t there so I took his place. We were doing hard work moving furniture here and there. Finally we were done and the party started. I stood looking at these people having fun drinking and singing.  
“Man, I hate these parties.”I turned around and there she was. She smiled and her white teeth glimmered. All I could do is smile back, “and I still don’t know why.” She laughed, “look at you, you look like a man now”.  
Chuckling I said, “and you look like a woman.”  
She then looked at me, “would you like to go to the barn and talk?” I was hesitant “come on, they wouldn’t even remember to piss much less know you’re gone.” I then conceded to that reasoning and off we went.  
Dana talked about her life in the past six years: the adventures, the boys, the learning and it seemed like she was so happy, which strangely made me happy. Then she asked me what I was doing. I had been anticipating this moment, and all my practice went out the window. “I learned to read and I write.”  
She looked at me with an astonished face. “Really! Who taught you?”  
I looked at her for a second and said “you.”  
Her smile faded and she looked serious then her face turned straight. She was scanning my eyes it seemed and I was melting in hers. Could she love? Could she want to be with me? “You’re amazing you know”. She held out her arm and embraced me. I couldn’t help but embrace her back. It was the longest but shortest hug I ever had in my life. We came apart and she looked at me and I looked at her. I put my palm on her cheeks, and she moved into the hand. I looked at her and she looked at me back. The next was an embrace of passion. I then knew despite my doubt, she loved me too.  
“I was thinking about you ever since that summer and I know it’s wrong but I can’t get you out of my head.”  
She looked up at me, “really? Because I was thinking about you as well for a long time. I always wished when I came back I would see you but it never happened.”  
I stroked her hair, “but it’s happening now.”  
There was a huge glass shattering noise coming from the house so Dana and I ran back. When we got back, the owner, her dad, was so drunk that he surely pissed himself. “Dana where were you the whole night?” he mumbled out.  
“Away from you drunk people, reading.”  
“That’s my studious little girl, ha ha!” he roared in a drunken excitement.  
“Alright papa let’s get you to bed, so you can get some rest” she sighed and then continued “and make sure you change your trousers before ma gets mad”.  
He snarled and went upstairs, she laughed a little and walked to the guests in the living room, said her rounds of goodbyes and then headed upstairs. As she passed me I swear her lips mouthed the words, I love you.

Heading home that night, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I mean, I couldnt stop smiling. I ran through everything in my head as if it just happened. Needless to say, that night I couldnt sleep. Dana this ... Dana that.. was just ringing through my head. I would also be neive if doubts didn't go through my head as well. How can she love me? I’m a slave to her father. How would we ever be together? All those thoughts entered my brain at such a rapid pace that I felt overwhelmed. The part that got me most though, as I laid on my bed looking at the moon, was when I started to feel sorry for myself. I started to think about the atrocity going on to my people and wondered why we were being treated worse than dogs by the white folk. The thing about being a slave was that if you thought too much, it would be the end. The thought of the unjust treatment would be sensed by the white folk and beaten out of you. I'd seen it happen on multiple occasions.  
One day, when I just turned 19, this negro whose name slips my mind, for name’s sake we'll call him Cassius. Cassius was a field slave like me, but was a lot older. He looked like he was in his thirties at least. Cassius had a wife who was beautiful, I mean beautiful. The sheriff was known to indulge in the negro women and saw Cassius's wife. He brought her to his house to do some work....

Present day

The father looked at his watch, “oh God” he thought to himself. It was way passed the kids’ bedtime. The kids were mesmerized by the story and so was he. When he was told this story, he didn’t remember it being that detailed. He was actually stuck in the story! He picked up some fallen debris from his children earlier and kissed them goodnight and headed to his room.  
The story excited him, he wanted to know what was next. He honestly felt like he was a baby in a candy store.  
As he was getting prepared for his bed, he wondered to himself what it was like to be a slave in those days and how it was to be in love as a slave. That thought didn't even include falling in love with a white girl in that time. The gratitude he felt towards his forefathers was at an ultimate premium.  
He tucked himself in, kissed his wife and eventually fell asleep.

"Mommy, I want Fruitloops!" and they both seemed to agree with that demand made by Sheena.  
"Havent I taught you any manners? You don't want, you ask!"  
Sheena knew she was wrong. After she corrected herself, the mother looked at the clock, and realized how behind she was and her husband wasn't up yet. "I have to go wake up your daddy, Sheena would I be able to trust you to watch your brother while I do so?" Sheena gave a nodded and the mother ran upstairs.  
When upstairs, to the mother’s amazement her husband wasn’t sleeping but reading. She never saw him so into a book before, well, that’s discounting Law School or even his cases. She missed this look he had when he was so transfixed by something.  
"Trevor darling, the kids are up and I have a meeting with the senior partners at the firm today, would you be able to watch the kids or call the babysitter?"  
Trevor looked up, and his eyes showed his wife something that she hadnt seen in a while, passion. He got up and said, "I love you Sarah, I hope you never forget it." Sarah was shocked because it seems that part of their life sailed a while ago due to work and the kids.  
"Okay, where is my husband?" she half joked. Trevor looked into her eyes and felt the need to explain the book to her.  
"So this is an almost 200 year old journal kept in your family, written by your great great grandfather?" She look purplexed, and started to loke through it. "How come I havent heard of this story before?!?" Trevor then told his wife about his grandmother changing the story when it was read to him. "Well I guess she thought you werent ready for the whole story." Then her eyes went wide, "do you think its good for our children to here this so young?" passing the book back, with a weary look.  
Trevor took a few seconds to respond, then said "well, I think that I would have been able to handle it and I feel Sheena and Darien are more mature then I was at their age. So yes, I do think they can handle it, my dear.”  
With that answer Sarah agreed. "Well, you should get going babe, I’ll take the kids to school". She kissed him and he never felt so much passion in that kiss in, it felt, years. He practically melted in her arms. After the embrace he walked all over their room looking under, over, and behind for something.  
"Are you okay?" Sarah asked.  
"Yeah yeah im looking for something". Sarah put her hands on her hip, "may I ask what you are looking for?"  
Trevor looked at her for a second then flashed the smile she fell in love with "my wife".

TO BE CONTINUED, SNEAK PEEK TO NEXT CHAPTER.....

Chapter 2

"Daddy, what happened to Cassius from the book?" Sheena asked. Trevor forgot about the book, due to his long day at his office.  
Trevor was a lawyer, a very distinguished one, to say the least. He felt that he had to work much harder to get where he got because he was black. So when he works he works a hundred and fifty percent more than his colleagues.  
"Well I guess we will find out, at bedtime sweetie" he responded with a mysterious vocal sound effect. The two children were excited. They went to tell their mother to join, which she responded with a yes.  
After all the nightly chores were done, the kids finally settled into bed. "Mommy can you read the story?", Darien asked. Sarah looked at Trevor then looked at Darien, "of course baby. Okay guys, where did you leave off?" Sarah asked but it seemed, before she could finish she had the answer already. She chuckled with her husband, she loved her kids liking books instead of the brain killer, TV. "Okay, okay I found it" as she started to read, "The sheriff is known to indulge in the negro woman and saw Cassius's wife and brought her to his house to do some work....

Past*  
The work ended up being rape of the poor man’s wife. Each time she came back from the "work" she would have a new and worse bruise than the last. Poor Cassius couldn’t do much but comfort her through the struggle. It seemed to affect him more than her. So I guess it was the last straw for him and when the sheriff tried to do it again to her. Cassius forgot who he was and straight out punched the sheriff. The sheriff didn’t even move, and all of our jaws were dropped. I’m pretty sure I saw the wicked smirk on the face of the sheriff turn wickeder. He finally had his chance to scratch his always so itchy itch and kill Cassius by hanging.  
I wasn’t able to see Dana the next day because there needed to be work done on the farm and they needed me to help. I was not happy about that to say the least but what could’ve I done. The day went quicker then I thought. There was a lot of drama on the farm between the slaves. They be fighting a lot these days about the worlds most stupidest things. It’s like we place the anger on each other and ourselves, when it should be the white folk who gets the brunt of our anger.

**Author's Note:**

> The more people read, the more I’ll write


End file.
